


Little Loves

by wildeisms



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dave is in 2019 Because Reasons, Domestic Fluff, Dorks in Love, Fluff, M/M, No Apocalypse, Only Softness, Ro the Cat, Softie David "Dave" Katz, Softie Klaus Hargreeves, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27020974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildeisms/pseuds/wildeisms
Summary: The kitten mewed, loud and insistent, and Dave laughed softly. “Hi, you,” he murmured, reaching out with one finger, the dopiest smile on his face. The whole scene was just precious. How was it possible to love someone this much? To be so overcome with affection for another living being? There were no words for what Klaus was feeling, for the intensity of it.Prompt fill for frogsarebxtches on tumblr, who suggested Dave and Klaus finding a stray kitty!
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz
Comments: 4
Kudos: 73





	Little Loves

If you’d asked Klaus just a few years ago if he ever saw himself settling down into anything even close to domesticity, he would have laughed in your face. He had been a queer, homeless addict with no qualifications, no job, and no money. His longest exclusive relationship had lasted a total of three weeks and he never knew for sure where his next meal was coming from. He hadn’t even been sure what normal adults did with their days.

It wasn’t as if he was an entirely new person. No, he was still queer, he was still an addict (albeit one who had managed to kick his worst vices), and he still had no qualifications and no job. But Klaus Hargreeves had been thoroughly domesticated by one Dave Katz, to the point where things like grocery lists and furniture stores and date nights were a part of his existence. 

The date nights were his favourite.

It had taken some getting used to for Dave to accept that showing any kind of affection in public was even a possibility, but once he had, it became blissfully normal for him to hold Klaus’s hand or to link his arm with Klaus’s. And Klaus was never going to complain about that, even if there were still those moments when they had to let go, just in case. It was an instinct, an inbuilt sense of self-preservation, and even though Klaus had a history of ignoring those sorts of senses, they were still there.

So when Dave stopped and let go of Klaus’s hand, he expected to feel something. He expected to sense some kind of danger, to be able to see a group of men or a stranger paying them a little too much attention. But he didn’t. “Dave?” he said uncertainly, turning back to look at his boyfriend. 

“Did you hear that?”

He heard a lot of things these days, now he was mostly just keeping the ghosts at bay rather than fully silenced. The faint frown creasing Dave’s forehead was unbearably cute, but Klaus could barely register it. Now he listened, really listened, he could hear a faint, feeble squeaking. 

“It’s coming from down that alley.”

Neither of them needed to say anything to know what the other was thinking. They followed the noise, down towards a metal trash can and a dirty, cardboard box lying beside it, abandoned garbage on filthy concrete, half in shadows from the streetlights and the few businesses still open on the main road. Dave crouched down and lifted the box’s lid. 

Inside was the smallest, sweetest kitten Klaus had ever seen, with thin, dark gray fur and barely visible ears. “Oh…”

The kitten mewed, loud and insistent, and Dave laughed softly. “Hi, you,” he murmured, reaching out with one finger, the dopiest smile on his face. The whole scene was just precious. How was it possible to love someone this much? To be so overcome with affection for another living being? There were no words for what Klaus was feeling, for the intensity of it.

Dave looked up from the kitten to Klaus, and his smile changed when he caught him staring. “What?” he asked bemusedly, another laugh bubbling up out of him.

“I  _ love  _ you.” It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, but it was a start. And it was the truth, an inescapable truth, that he loved Dave with every fibre of his being. 

“So if I asked you if we can take this little guy home, would you say yes?” Dave asked, and the hopeful look in those perfect blue eyes would have been enough to make Klaus agree to just about anything. 

The ‘little guy’, it transpired, was more likely a girl - although they couldn’t be certain when she was so young. The vet they took her to had guessed her to be just under a week old, although so malnourished that she had barely grown since birth. It was a miracle she was alive, the vet had said. We can take her off your hands, she had said, and both Klaus and Dave had said “no” immediately. 

“Are you sure? Kittens this young are a lot of work-”

“We’re sure,” Klaus had insisted. 

And that was how they ended up bringing her home in a carry case that seemed far too big for her, an electronic heat pad in the base of it to keep her warm, along with a full bag of supplies and leaflets on proper kitten care. They’d more likely need to visit a pet store in the morning, but they had enough formula and a comfortable enough case that it would be luxury compared to the cardboard box they’d brought her to the vet in, and a demonstration on how to feed her correctly. 

“Welcome home, baby,” Dave said in a soft, high voice, lifting the case up to look directly into the kitten’s sleeping face.

“I thought _ I _ was your baby,” Klaus said with a mock pout. It wasn’t that he was jealous of the kitten. He wasn’t. He just liked having pet names that didn’t come from whoever he was sleeping with forgetting - or just not caring to learn - his real name. With Dave, it wasn’t like that. He liked Dave’s pet names for him. He liked hearing ‘baby’ - or ‘honey’ or ‘beautiful’ - and knowing it always meant ‘Klaus’. 

Dave laughed and put the case down on the table. He turned to Klaus, tucked his hair behind his ear, cupped his cheek, and kissed him. “Yeah, you’re my baby,” he said, and Klaus beamed, his hands on Dave’s waist. He was always so warm, so wonderfully alive.

“See, that’s what I thought.” His hand lingered as he pulled away to go sit down, an invitation for Dave to join him on the couch. His couch. That was still strange, a couch that actually belonged to him, not just one he’d been allowed to crash on. It was strange, but it was the good kind of strange. 

Dave sat beside him, his arm coming to rest around Klaus’s shoulders. “We’re gonna have to name her, you know. Especially if you want to be my only ‘baby’. I mean, you could be ‘love’ and she’d be ‘little love’, but that’s gonna get confusing.”

Klaus hummed as he lent into Dave’s side. “You got any ideas?”

“Klaus Two?” Dave offered, a mischievous glint in his eye that made Klaus laugh. He may have had the reputation between the two of them for being the ridiculous one, but Dave could hold his own on that front without any problems, could be just as weird and crazy as Klaus was. He just hid it better when they were around other people. Dave laughed too, and Klaus felt another rush of pure love for this beautiful, perfect man. “What? She reminds me of you, y’know?”

“Why, because I’m cute?” Klaus asked, preening.

Dave laughed and nudged him playfully. “Yeah, ‘cause you’re cute. But also ‘cause she was so precious and vulnerable and I just wanted to bring her home and make sure she was okay.”

“Did you just compare me to an abandoned kitten?”

“Maybe?” 

The faux innocent look on Dave’s face was simply too sweet to resist. Klaus kissed him quickly, then settled in against his chest. “How about Ro?”

“Rose?”

“No, Ro. Like Cockroach.” It was an apt name for a survivor, a little thing found among the trash and the dirt.

Dave snorted. “That’s an awful name.”

“You wanted to call her Klaus Two!”

“Yeah, but Klaus is a sweet name. Cockroach is gross.”

“Not Cockroach, Ro!” Klaus insisted, but he couldn’t keep himself from laughing. And soon Dave was laughing too, and they were giggling together all over again. Talking with him, laughing with him, even just being with him, there was more joy to be found in just a day of it than there had been in any given year of his youth. “Okay, okay… We could call her Beyonce?”

“You know, now that I think about it, Ro isn’t that bad,” Dave said, and Klaus pulled back in an exaggeration of shocked offense. 

“What’s wrong with Beyonce?”

“Baby, I love you so much, but she’s just not good.”

Klaus shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m dating a Beyonce hater.” But of all the flaws Dave could have, this was one he could deal with.

“You’re a dork,” Dave teased. A small mew from the carry case drew their attention away from each other, and Dave just grinned. “And Ro agrees with me. I mean- oh, goddamn it, Klaus.”

Klaus laughed triumphantly. “I knew you loved me!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Love you too, Davey.”

**Author's Note:**

> For those interested, Ro looks something like [this](https://iheartcats.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Bruce-0.jpg) in my mind.


End file.
